Lost cell phone leads to officer’s arrest in break-in
• Brian Kittell, 31 – former sheriff’s deputy here and police officer in Tabor City since January – was arrested Thursday evening on a breaking and entering charge involving a Tabor City home.
By BOB HIGH
A lost cell phone in Tabor City led to the arrest and resignation of a Tabor City police officer Thursday. Brian Scott Kittell, a 31-year-old policeman living in Evergreen, was charged with breaking and entering Thursday evening.
Kittell was arrested by State Bureau of Investigation agents on a misdemeanor break-in charge involving entry into an unoccupied Tabor City home early last Wednesday.
A Tabor City woman called the last number shown on the cell phone when she found it under her bed and discovered it was the Tabor City Police Department, reports Tabor City Police Chief Donald Dowless.
Dowless provided the following information:
Kittell and fellow police officer Sgt. Jennifer Popynick on Oct. 30 accompanied a Tabor City woman as security while the woman – estranged from her husband -- retrieved clothing and other items from the residence.
During this visit the two police officers learned the location of a spare key hidden outside the home.
On the night of Oct. 31, Popynick and Kittell were on duty and participated in a “Click It or Ticket It” checkpoint in Tabor City. Popynick ended her duty at 1 a.m. on Nov. 1 and gave Kittell a cell phone, property of the police department.
No response
During the evening hours of Nov. 1, Dowless and police Capt. Dean Foley called the cell phone issued to Kittell and got no response. Dowless said the calls were made to an officer who should have had the phone.
Dowless inquired of other officers as to who had the phone and why wasn’t it being answered. Foley had contacted the off-duty Kittell at his Evergreen home and was told Kittell still had the phone on his uniform belt and Kittell would return it the next morning – Nov. 2.
At 9:30 p.m. on Nov. 1, a woman called Foley who said she was calling from a cell phone she had found in her home under her bed, and had been alerted to its presence by the phone ring. It was the same woman Kittell and Popynick had accompanied on Oct. 30.
The woman said she was calling the number displayed on the phone’s screen, and asked whose phone was she using. Foley told her it was a police cell phone. Foley realized the woman was using the cell phone that was missing and thought to be in Kittell’s possession.
Dowless said he and Foley knew the phone had not been left there on Oct. 30 when Kittell and Popynick went with the woman to get some of her things, because Popynick had used it on Oct. 31.
Officer confronted
Dowelss sent Sgt. Chris Dudley to Evergreen to get Kittell, who thought there was a “special operation” going on at the department.
Kittell was confronted at 1:45 a.m. Thursday (Nov. 2) and his rights were read to him. Within a few minutes Kittell confessed to entering the woman’s unoccupied home between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. on Nov. 1.
Kittell admitted entering the woman’s bedroom and being involved in a sex act while no one else was present. He used some of the woman’s clothing in an attempt to remove evidence of his presence and did not remove any property from the home.
Dowless said Kittell was immediately suspended without pay, and the SBI was contacted.
“I believe in swift and precise action, particularly when it involves one of my officers,” the chief said.
“I regret this situation and want to assure the people of Tabor City this is not typical behavior of police officers, and certainly not the ones working here. The Tabor City Police Department apologizes for this incident,” Dowless stated.
Kittell served as a sheriff’s deputy and Columbus County Schools’ resource officer at Acme-Delco Middle School and Nakina Alternative School from August 2003 until Jan. 20, 2006.
He resigned at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, and was arrested at 5 p.m. the same day.
A native of Texas, Kittell served six years in the military.